Carl Everett
Carl Edward Everett III (born June 3, 1971 in Tampa, Florida) is a former Major League Baseball outfielder currently playing for the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League. A switch hitter, he played with the Chicago White Sox on their 2005 World Series winning team. He throws right-handed and plays all outfield positions, and occasionally designated hitter. High school years Everett attended Hillsborough High School in Tampa, Florida and was a letterman in football, baseball, and track. In football, he garnered 948 rushing yards as a senior. Carl Everett graduated from Hillsborough High School in 1990. Playing career He was the 10th overall pick in the amateur draft, selected by the New York Yankees, but he would make his Major League debut with the Florida Marlins on July 1, . After being traded to the Mets, he had his first full season in with 443 at bats. He hit .248 that season, with a .420 slugging percentage. He had his best seasons with the Houston Astros, hitting .325 with 27 stolen bases in . That year, his .571 slugging percentage was in the top 10 in the league. After being traded on December 14, 1999, to the Boston Red Sox for minor league shortstop Adam Everett, he had a career high 34 home runs in . The Boston fans welcomed him at first, but their enthusiasm cooled somewhat after he was suspended for 10 days for bumping into umpire Ron Kulpa. The following year, Everett was fined for grabbing his crotch while yelling at Seattle Mariners pitcher Jamie Moyer after hitting a home run. He struggled in , with a shoulder injury hampering his performance, and ongoing controversy with the Boston media serving as a distraction to the team. One of the few bright spots for Everett that season came on September 2, 2001, when Everett came into the game as a pinch hitter and broke up a potential perfect game by Mike Mussina of the New York Yankees. Mussina had retired the first 26 Boston Red Sox and gotten two strikes on Everett before he hit a soft single to left center. On December 12, 2001, Everett was traded to the Texas Rangers for Darren Oliver. In three separate years, Everett has made his league's top 10 in the hit by pitch category. In October of , Carl Everett won his first and only World Series Championship with the Chicago White Sox. Everett stepped in as the starting DH for most of that season for the White Sox after an early season injury to Frank Thomas. On December 14, 2005, Everett was signed by the Mariners off of the free agent market to a one year contract for the 2006 season, with a vesting option for . On Mother's Day, May 14, 2006, Everett was one of more than 50 hitters who brandished a pink bat to benefit the Breast Cancer Foundation. The majority of the time, he was a designated hitter and very rarely played the field, backing up the corner outfield positions. He played in 92 games before the Mariners designated Everett for assignment on July 26, 2006, effectively ending his tenure with the Mariners organization. At the time of his release, Larry Stone pointed out in the Seattle Times http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/sports/2003155137_stone27.html, he was 85th out of 86 AL players with qualifying at bats in batting average, at .227. Everett is currently on the roster of the Long Island Ducks of the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. Through July 22, 2008 Everett was hitting a remarkable .342 with 15 HR and 52 RBI in only 67 games. The Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels have expressed interest in the veteran slugger, but he remains unsigned by a major league team. Controversies Everett is an outspoken man, and his remarks have proven controversial on several occasions. Perhaps the best-known of these was his denial of the existence of dinosaurs. He was quoted as saying, "God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve. The Bible never says anything about dinosaurs. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Somebody actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex." He also derided fossils of dinosaur bones as man-made fakes. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/cover/news/2000/07/19/everett_flashback In reference to these comments, Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy dubbed Everett "Jurassic Carl." Everett, in turn, referred to Shaughnessy as the "curly-haired boyfriend" of Globe beat writer Gordon Edes,"A Curt response", Inside Track, the Boston Herald, published February 27, 2007, accessed February 27, 2007. a nickname which stuck after ESPN columnist Bill Simmons started incorporating it into his work. In Seattle, he was known as C-Rex, a name given him by writers for the Mariners blog U.S.S. Mariner http://www.ussmariner.com. Everett, again in an interview with Shaughnessy, questioned the validity of the Apollo Moon Landing.http://www.bostonphoenix.com/supplements/the_best/00/text/OE_BASE_BEHAVIOR.html In 1997, Everett and his wife Linda were charged with abusing their two children, Shawna and Carl IV. The criminal charges, which stemmed from allegations that Linda had applied "excessive corporal punishment" and that Carl had chosen not to intervene, were ultimately dropped. A judge in New York Family court, however, placed Shawna in the care of her maternal grandmother, where she currently remains. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/mariners/2002684662_everetttimeline15.html Each season, Everett tends to get into altercations with umpires. Some of these tirades have resulted in suspensions and fines, the longest of which, 10 games, came during the 2000 season after an incident in which he bumped noses with umpire Ron Kulpa during the process of taking exception to Kulpa's ruling that Everett's batting stance was illegal, he was also fined $5,000. In numerous interviews, such as the one in which he denies the existence of dinosaurshttp://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/cover/news/2000/07/19/everett_flashback, Everett has stated that he thrives on being hated, and that it keeps him on top of his game. Opposing players, umpires, and even his own teammates are not immune, as evidenced by his postgame shouting match with Seattle manager Mike Hargrovehttp://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2510427 after a 14-6 loss to the Los Angeles Angels on July 5, 2006. Everett has also made controversial remarks about homosexuality. He once said that if he had an openly gay teammate that he would consider retiring, or, at the very least, "set him straight." In the 2005 season, he told Maxim that he has had gay teammates and accepted them, but, "Gays being gay is wrong. Two women can't produce a baby, two men can't produce a baby, so it's not how it's supposed to be. … I don't believe in gay marriages. I don't believe in being gay." http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2087125. References See also * Top 500 home run hitters of all time External links * Long Island Ducks Statistics Category:2005 Chicago White Sox World Series Championship Team Category:Major League Baseball designated hitters Category:Major League Baseball outfielders Category:Major League Baseball players from Florida Category:Florida Marlins players Category:New York Mets players Category:Houston Astros players Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Texas Rangers players Category:Chicago White Sox players Category:Montreal Expos players Category:Seattle Mariners players Category:American League All-Stars Category:African American baseball players Category:Creationists Category:People from Tampa, Florida Category:People from Miami, Florida Category:Edmonton Trappers players Category:Norfolk Tides players Category:Long Island Ducks players Category:Players Category:Players